The Jaguar (Panthera onca) is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. And it is found nowhere else. The Jaguar and its smaller relative the Spotted Leopard share a common Asian ancestry. The opportunistic Jaguar crept across the land bridge at the Bering Straits two million years ago. It is an apex predator, solitary, main chance, no kidding around. It has jaws of immense power, allowing it to kill in a direct, one bite act by crushing the skull of its prey. This is a feat unique among the big cats. The bite instantly pierces the temporal bones between the ears. Lights out. (None of the mess that comes with the lion's neck bite.) When attacking large reptiles, Jaguar eschews the head and leaps on to the back of the prey, severing the cervical vertebra with that tremendous bite. The victim never knows what hit it, like Jayne Mansfield when she drove into the semi in the Bayou fog. The Jaguar is smaller than the lion but has twice the lion's strength. Panthera onca is a keystone species that stabilizes ecosystems and regulates populations of the animals it hunts. It is an endangered creature, having been eliminated from the US thanks in no small part to the Bush Wall. The Jaguar Corridor from Mexico down into South America passes through areas of increasing human population. Farmers and ranchers along this route are no friends of the Jaguar. Its future as a species hangs in the balance. And we know which way these things eventually go, usually sooner rather than later.

In pre-Columbian religion and myth Jaguar is a sacred animal. In those cultures a sacred being often assumes an animal disguise. Something is hidden or veiled behind all that animal magic, all that preternatural power. Sleeping and dreaming and passing between worlds are involved. The Melanistic (Black) Jaguar has special significance. (Approximately six percent of all Jaguars are Melanistic.) The Maya considered Jaguar to be a companion in the spirit world, facilitating communication between night and day, the dead and the living. The abiding power of these symbolic associations is surprising. Three years ago I did a post on the Melanistic Jaguar that has had 23,000 hits. That's twice as many as any other post has had, and four times as many as the perennial favourite post on the Occupy Movement, which owed much of its popularity to a contagion of Google voyeurs seeking a view of a woman named Zuni Tikka in only her underpants (and only for a good cause).